It’s Iffy For Moving iTunes’ Rental Movies To Another Computer Or Device; Don’t Expect A Solution!

It’s iffy that Apple makes it near impossible for iTunes users to move rentalmovies from one computer or device to another in most cases. Notice how I said near impossible and most cases, because some people suggest that you can actually move iTunes’ rental movies from Mac to iPad, but not vice versa; others people suggest other things; I know for sure you can’t move iTunes’ rental movies from one computer to another computer directly. I surmise Apple has this limitation in place to prevent iTunes users from rendering the rental expiration time frame useless.

Is it weird that you can move iTunes’ rental movies from Mac to iPad but not vice versa? Once you move the iTunes’ rental movies, they’re gone from the original computer or device (i.e., original destination or the container of contents). I think Apple should try harder by allowing iTunes users to have the ability to move rental movies from one computer or device to another; of course, doing it in such a way that the whole process can still work out as intended such as not allowing users to render the rental expiration time frame useless.

In my case, I was using iTunes on a Macbook Pro and rented couple HD movies, but I wanted to move the rental movies to the iTunes on Windows 7 computer so I could watch the HD movies on a bigger monitor. Apple is making it impossible for me to do such a thing, and so I was disappointed. Sure, I could have planned the rentals out better such as I should have rented movies within the iTunes that resided on Windows 7 computer, but it was easy for me to blame Apple for not making things easier for me.

Some people suggest that it’s possible for you to move iTunes’ rental movies from a computer to iPod and then from iPod back onto a computer. For iPad and iPhone, people suggest that you can move the iTunes’ rental movies to these devices, but not in reverse as in moving the rental movies back to a computer. I don’t think you can move iTunes’ rental movies from a computer to another computer directly.

Would Home Sharing for iTunes allow iTunes users to move rental movies from one computer or device to another? Don’t even try that, because I tried and it turned out to be a waste of time. How about iPhone’s iTunes? Well, it is kind of weird that iPhone’s iTunes allows you to check TV shows and music under Purchased, but movies aren’t made available to be viewed under Purchased. I figure that rental movies are rental after all, and so rental movies are appropriately made unavailable under Purchased.

I guess when one wants to rent a movie from iTunes, one better makes sure that one has to be on a computer that one wants to watch the rental movie. As iTunes can be installed on almost all computer platforms (i.e., iTunes isn’t compatible with Linux), it won’t be a problem for iTunes users to watch iTunes’ rental movies on most computers. Doing anything different, iTunes users just beg for the inconvenience.

Business wise, this inconvenience isn’t a big deal for Apple, because Netflix and other Apple’s competitors probably are facing the same problem of making brand new movies to be available in ways that won’t make their customers feel irritating. Of course, streaming old movies should not have such a painful DRM experience, because Netflix is superb in making the streaming of old movies to be available on most computer platforms and devices. People should not even bother with moving any movie while using Netflix; it’s not a part of the equation; it’s all about streaming and what devices can be streamed Netflix’s movies and what not.

Renting old movies through iTunes might still prevent iTunes users from moving rental movies from one computer or device to another, because it’s all about DRM again. Indeed, it’s clear that streaming and renting are two different beasts altogether. In the end it’s up to which beast you like to hang out with. For me, I guess I might hang out with both from time to time, because renting movies from iTunes does have one advantage over Netflix’s instant streaming, it’s that you can download and watch brand new movies. Oh, don’t forget about Amazon too, because you can both rent brand new movies and streaming old movies through Amazon. Nonetheless, I have digressed, and so let me end this long and rather moot post at this impolite juncture, OK?